A few substances have
been found which produce a decline in temperature when administered in
enormous and frequently repeated doses; but such administration has often
been found to be decidedly detrimental to the patient, producing not
infrequently serious injury to the stomach, kidneys, and sometimes the
nervous system. So great is the danger of such injurious results, few
careful practitioners have cared to adopt the heroic "antipyretic"
medication recommended by experimenters, preferring to allow their
patients to burn with fever, mitigated only by such simple means as are
commonly employed by nurses, than to require them to combat the poisonous
influences of a drug in addition to the morbid element of the disease.
Happily, however, it is not necessary to leave the patient to the unaided
efforts of nature. By cool sponging of the surface, persistently and
thoroughly applied; by large, cool compresses placed over the abdomen and
chest, or even the whole front of the body, and changed as often as warm,
or every three to five minutes; by frequently repeated cool packs; by cold
water drinking; by ice-packs to the spine; by constant application of ice
or frozen compresses to the head; by forcing perspiration by copious hot
drinks and a warm blanket pack--by any or all of these means the
temperature may be reduced with promptness in nearly every case.
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